Dave

A flaming, wild apprehension made me break out into a tingly case of goosebumps. Shit. Oh, shit. Why couldn't I keep control?! How could I continually let myself do these things?! For sure, if I'd kissed Zac, I'd scare him away from being my friend. That was the exact opposite of my intentions. I shot a look at Zac, who looked as if he'd been standing somebody had shoved him over into his current position.

Control, I willed myself. He doesn't want to do that. Why do you?

Before I could keep tabs on what was happening outside of my tumbling thoughts, our older brothers barged into the room with all their blond glory.

"HEY-DAVE-HEY-ZAC-HAVE-YOU-SEEN-AN-ENVELOPE-LIKE-THIS-SOMEWHERE-AROUND-HERE?!!?!" Scott was raging, stomping into the room and looking like a predatory animal, waving a plain brown mailing envelope around like it was a flag. Taylor just smiled at us in greeting, his hands in his pockets, a totally calm version of Scott.

"Um, yeah, there was one just like that tacked onto the door this morning," reported Clint, looking around behind him and finding the envelope on the table. Scott snatched it up. "It had your name on it, so Dad saved it for you."

"You didn't open it, did you?" Scott asked, handing his first envelope back to Taylor.

We all shook our heads.

"No, why?" Zac wanted to know.

Scott was busy checking the seal on the envelope to make sure it wasn't broken. To his apparent relief he found it in tact, as none of us had really cared if he'd gotten yet another love package from a fan. It wasn't really a new thing, though I have to say this was the first time anyone left something tacked on our door like a death threat.

"Taylor got one, too?" asked Bob.

Tay and Scott just nodded, and Taylor dismissed Bob's question by replying, "Yeah, I got one, too. It's a fan letter. A really stupid one, I might add."

"Aw, that's mean. Scott gets more than his share of fan mail, but you should always appreciate everything," Clint observed.

Scott and Taylor shared a glance.

"Hey, Zac, Dave, can we talk to you for a second?" Scott wanted to know.

"Hey, what's so secret you can say it around Zac and Dave and not around us?" Bob wanted to know, and suddenly, I received a sympathetic triplet feeling that let me know that Bob and Clint had been feeling a little left-out.

This question left Scott and Taylor speechless, as none of us could figure out how to explain that we four knew something no one else could know. And it wasn't exactly as if Zac and I could help and say, Oh, nothing, Scott and Tay just want to tell us how they necked the night away.

"Forget it," Clint shrugged, picking up on the waves of panic we were all sending out. "Whatever. C'mon, Bob, let's order another hour of Nintendo."

"'Kay," Bob said glumly, genuinely hurt because of our secrecy. I bit down hard on my lip to keep from yelling after them and hugging them and apologizing to them.

"Jesus, I feel bad now," Scott said, sucking in a breath of air and looking after Bob and Clint.

"GOOD!" Bob's voice yelled.

"Maybe we should go to the hall," suggested Taylor, looking sore at being friction to our family.

"Is something wrong?" Zac questioned as we all walked towards the door.

"You'll know in a minute," replied his brother. I followed last and I heard Clint's voice mock,

"Secrets, secrets, are no fun . . ."

I shut the door behind me, and now we all stood in the hallway awkwardly.

Taylor

Scott and I fished for words, and I didn't catch any worth keeping.

"What's up? What's the matter?" Scott's younger brother implored. I liked Dave, he was really nice, and he had Scott's sweet initial shyness about him.

"I - we've . . . Tay and I . . ." began Scott. I sighed and opened my envelope. Scott did the same, now that we had some privacy. Pulling the picture out was kind of like opening a magazine to find yourself - weird. Scott and I exchanged glances before I handed the picture to our little brothers, who hungrily accepted it, as people in the Jerry Springer audience want fights.

"This is you? Yeah, it's definitely you," Zac remarked, his eyes investigating the photograph. "What, did somebody . . ."

Zac's voice died out as the obvious truth kicked him in the butt. Dave's eyes flashed in temporary panic.

"Oh my God, you two actually kissed in public?! What the fuck is wrong with you! Who took this?"

"We don't know," Scott and I replied in unison. Scott pilled out his own picture, and upon first glance it was a mirror image of the other one, but then we saw that the difference was that it was about a nanosecond before our lips had met and I was advancing on him quite heavily. This one had the same words written on the bottom in all-capitals and that menacing red Sharpie. I SAW YOU.

Shit. I closed my eyes to block out the picture, but it just flashed in front of me again. The words were twisted and bright, like a stop sign in my mind.

Scott handed his photo to Dave. Dave visibly shuddered, not because of our physical closeness, but because the image, for being a motion-image, was strikingly clear and detailed, and focused on our faces. Whoever got the shot was probably hanging around for a while and had recognized us and aimed the camera before I decided I had to kiss him.

"'I Saw You'?" prodded Zac. "That's kinda freaky."

"Understatement," I lamented.

"I feel a little freaked," Scott nodded.

"He got your bad side, Tay."

I shot a frown at Zac. It was sort of a weird thing to say - it was a side of me I didn't want to reveal to the public, and that's how I took "bad side." Zac was talking about something completely different.

"When did this happen?" questioned Dave. He handed the picture back to Scott, wanting it away from him.

"Last night," I replied.

"Just last night? And they already have it all developed and blown-up and at our doors? Talk about service," Zac remarked.

"You're taking this way too lightly," Scott informed Zac.

"And you're panicking way too much. It's just one or two pictures."

"One or two pictures that could break our entire careers."

"Fuck, no. Do you have any idea how many fake pictures there on the internet? Especially of Tay."

"Yeah, thanks for mentioning, Zac," I said, not bothering to hide my annoyance.

"I think it looks too obvious to be dismissed as a fake," Dave quietly said. "Not that teenies can't do anything they put their minds to, but - Jesus. The angle is killer on this pic. They really shot you from a good place."

"Yeah, I hear that," I agreed.

"Let's go down to the lobby to see where they were standing when they took the picture," Zac suggested, practically reading our earlier thoughts. "Maybe they were hiding in a janitor's closet. Maybe they're a janitor."

Dave

Scott and Taylor seemed to agree. But then Scott said, "Well . . . do you think it's safe for all of us to go out in public together?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't it be? I mean, I know somebody took your picture, but it doesn't mean he or she lives in the lobby," giggled Zac cutely. "Lobby hermit."

"Just the same, maybe you two should not be close at all. Let me or Zac walk between you guys," I suggested.

"I volunteer Dave," said Zac. So, Tay and Scott let me step between them, and we all began to walk down the hallway to the elevator. "Good idea, you guys, let's just walk into the hallway to talk about this," Zac was sarcastically saying. "Let's go where anybody could hear us."

"Well, I didn't want to say anything in front of Bob and Clint. It's bad enough that you two have to know," Scott replied. "This is something I'd really prefer to keep to myself."

"That's impossible, you can never keep anything to yourself when you have siblings. So, tell us," Zac said, that prying sparkle in his big brown eyes, "have you two French kissed?"

"Zac," Taylor moaned painedly, rolling his eyes. "That's really rude."

"Tay, I'm your brother, and I deserve to know these things. You'd tell me if it was a girl, I know you would. Spill it, you two. You just said 'something' and I want to know what that 'something' is."

I smiled slightly and listened. I'd never ask, but I kinda wanted to know, too. The clipped hints we'd received while listening from the bathroom were just enough to leave me wondering what exactly the status of our brothers' forbidden relationship was.

"You see?" Zac crowed, catching onto my smile. "Me and Dave want to know."

"Sorry. We're not telling," said Scott. "We really shouldn't be talking about this right now, anyway." As we rounded the corner to the elevators, Scott leaned forward and pressed the lit-up orangey-yellow "down" button. The doors opened, and we stepped in.

Zac leaned back and whispered to me behind Taylor's back, "They haven't."

Taylor lashed, "God, you little creep, what's it to you anyway? Why do you wanna know so bad?"

That shut up Zac, and he even appeared to be a tad scared back at Taylor's reaction. Then, I realized why Zac was questioning. He was questioning the validity of a male/male relationship, trying to figure out what it was, what the options were and the differences between a straight relationship and a gay one. I suddenly felt a little wave of curiosity. Did that mean Zac was opening up to the opportunity? A hopeful tingle appeared in my stomach as I gazed at him. I so wanted to just try it. I wanted him to try with me.

Too suddenly, I found myself walking with Taylor, Scott, and Zac into the busy lobby. There was a new wave of vacationers checking in, and bellboys running around in their little gold and red uniforms gathering luggage. Taylor grabbed me and Zac by the arms, and Scott grabbed Zac's other arm, and pulled us sharply to the left, into the darker corner where the gift shop, cafe, and newspaper stand was. We were sort of halfway hidden behind the newspaper stand and the pop machine in the corner of the little cafe.

"We were standing right there. Between the receptionist's desk and the fountain, nearer to the fountain." Scott pointed to the location he spoke of. We were completely on the wrong side of the hotel to be at the vantage the picture was taken from, and we found ourselves peering at the other side, by reception. There was a wooden door with a tiny sign that stated "Hotel Employees ONLY," and also, there was a tiny hallway a few feet from that. "What's down that hall?" I asked.

"I don't know, I don't work here," Scott muttered.

"That was rhetorical, dumbass," I replied, allowing Scott to be cranky.

"Someone should go see. Zac, I volunteer you."

Zac sent me a sharp look.

Zac

"Gee, thanks, Dave."

"Just getting you back," he replied.

"You know I'll just get you right back again," I said, stepping away and looking out for possibly any teenaged girls in the lobby that might have been there with parents, and seeing none, walked the distance across the lobby. The little hallway was way close to the receptionist, but she was so busy with patrons that she didn't see me slip by the desk and into the hall.

It was a short hallway that had a door leading to the employee section of the hotel's parking garage at the very end of it. A few doors and a water fountain lined the white walls. The white didn't match the splendor of the decoration in the lobby, and it seemed out of place, or like a hall in a James Bond movie.

I slowly walked down the hall, noting what each door said or didn't say. One was "Manager" and another was "Security" and another was "PA," whatever that was. I stopped for a leisurely drink just to make the others wait, then, I strolled my way right back out and across the lobby again.

On my way, I noticed that how I saw the fountain was exactly the perspective in the photo.

"Yep, whoever it was was definitely right into the little hall," I reported, raising my hand and saluting to Dave. Dave just kind of laughed.

"And we wouldn't have seen them at all. They would have been blocked by the wall and the receptionist's desk," Scott sighed.

"Do you have any idea who it could have been?"

"Anybody," I replied. "She didn't even notice me going into the hallway."

"Well, we're right back to where we started from," Taylor sighed. "Never fear, Taylor. Everyone already knows you're gay anyway," I said gently. Taylor whacked me in the shoulder, hard, and it just made me giggle.

After Taylor punched me around a few more times, we headed back upstairs, and decided to go to the Hanson suite. I could tell Taylor and Scott felt restless, but there wasn't anything we could do about the pic with our limited information. As soon as we were in the bedroom shut away from Dad and Isaac (Isaac, who probably thought we were plotting evilry against him because we wouldn't let him in on our secret), Tay flopped himself down on the bed and covered his face.

"This sucks. I hate this. I don't like sitting around," complained Scott. "I feel like we should be doing something."

"We could play charades," I suggested dully. "You first."

"Yeah, bite me, Zac," replied Scott.

"No, I believe that's Taylor's job."

"Zac, shut up," whined Tay. I threw my hands up. I was just trying to keep things light! If Taylor and Scott dug themselves into a trench of worry, they'd never find their way out. Dave sighed and sat at the table next to Taylor's Toshiba, and Scott went over to go stand at the window, but instead of standing still over there, he began to pace back and forth in front of it and mutter.

"So," I prompted. "About this photo. Do you think if anybody found it, they'd think it was real?"

Taylor let out a huge sigh, and began to be the drama queen he is at heart. "I don't even want to think about it." He rolled over onto his stomach and fished the picture out of the envelope.

Scott's muttering became louder. "There is no fucking way . . ."

"What?" Dave asked as he trailed off.

Scott just grunted. I eyed him, pacing back and forth quickly.

"Calm down, you're going to wear down a path in the carpet. Panicking like this isn't going to help anything."

"PANICKING CALMS ME DOWN!" Scott yelled.